


I'll Take Whatever You'll Give Me

by bucharestbuck



Series: Running From the Past [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 05:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11457354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucharestbuck/pseuds/bucharestbuck
Summary: After being on the run together, Steve and Bucky finally reconnect.





	I'll Take Whatever You'll Give Me

Shuffling quickly into the dingy room lit only by street lamps through the window, the sharp thud of the door and the clicking of locks shattered the silence. Steve watched as Bucky ditched the duffel slung on his shoulder and prowled around the room like a lion on the hunt. Lap after lap, Steve watched in silence, frozen in place. 

Once Bucky was satisfied with the security of the room, he returned to his duffel bag, removing multiple weapons to conceal under and in pieces of furniture throughout the room. A hand gun under the pillow. A knife strapped to the leg of a desk. Another gun slid between the mattress of the queen bed and the box springs. And that was only the beginning. 

Blinking a few times, Steve slid into motion. He walked over to the small sofa, placing his own duffel bag on it. The light weight of the bag contrasted heavily with the thoughts weighing on Steve’s mind. Living on the run and being two extremely high profile “celebrities” to put it kindly, had its difficulties. 

“Shower” was all Steve heard before Bucky disappeared into the bathroom. The terse word thrown over the other mans shoulder worried Steve. They hadn’t exactly had time to catch up either in the few short weeks they’d been together, bouncing from city to city, motel room to abandoned building. Steve, however, wasn’t exactly jumping at the idea. You can’t exactly put decades of pain and suffering and longing into a light, chatty conversation. 

The rush of water from the shower drew Steve's eyes to the closed door. He watched the shadow of Bucky's feet dance against the light coming under the white wood.Their relationship since having reunited was a bit rocky. Not much progress had been made aside from the fact that their bodies instinctively trusted one another be it in a fight or just sitting in a room. Steve still found Bucky sticking mostly to his left side and that if danger presented itself, Bucky would place himself between Steve and what or whoever posed a threat. 

It scared Steve the first time he truly watched Bucky fight. Any human emotion or expression drained from his face, Bucky Barnes fading to Soldier. After the situation was neutralized, Steve counted the minuted until Bucky seemed to return to his body. It took longer than Steve would have liked. But as time went on, Steve counting the time it took for his Bucky to return, the agonizing minutes decreased. Each time he saw the light flicker back behind grey eyes, Steve thought a silent prayer of gratitude.

As the shower shut off, Steve spent the brief minutes before Bucky would inevitable exit the bathroom dripping and half naked stripping his civilian disguise and replacing it with a pair of flannel pants and a t-shirt, preferring to shower in the morning to escape those piercing eyes before he could reconstruct the toppling walls he’d built. 

The bathroom door creaked open, Bucky emerged bathed in the harsh florescent light and in nothing but a pair of boxers and a t shirt. For all of the months they had now spent together, Steve had never once seen Bucky without a shirt. Maybe he didn’t want Steve to see the scars or maybe he didn’t want to see them himself. Steve never asked. Bucky never told. 

“I’ll grab the couch since you did last time,” Steve said pulling his duffel bag from the cushions. 

“No. I am staying up anyway. Take the bed,” Bucky said before heading over to the desk and pulling the chair out from under it. He placed it in the center of the room pointed at the door, windows to one side, bathroom with window to his other. 

“You haven’t slept much, Buck. Please get some rest. It’s really not a problem,” Steve protested. He knew Bucky got little sleep as it was, and he refused to watch the dark circles under Bucky’s eyes get any darker. 

Bucky crossed his arms. “I’m not letting you sleep on the couch. I know it isn’t comfortable on your hundred year old bones.”

Steve huffed. Sometimes Bucky would crack little jokes like this, raising Steve’s hopes of bringing some kind of normalcy back to their relationship even higher. However, he knew a mountains worth of talking and working things out stood in the way of that. “Your bones are older than mine so sitting in that chair all night isn’t good for them. The beds big enough. Just get in it,” Steve said, leaving no room for discussion. 

After seeming to come to a decision and shaking his head, Bucky returned the chair back under the desk and plodded his way over to the bed. Both men stood opposite each other, looking at each other, before finally Bucky sighed and pulled back the covers. They both slipped under the scratchy cotton sheets, leaving a safe distance. Steve reached over to the night stand, cutting the light and leaving them in darkness. 

For as long as they had been running together, never once had they shared a bed. Steve had tried to convince Bucky multiple times, a few times selfishly for the opportunity to be near him, the rest out of sheer desperation to get the man to sleep. He didn’t sleep much at all, and when he did, it usually ended in screams. 

Once Steve had ended up trapped beneath Bucky’s muscular thighs, knife to his throat. Another time he watched Bucky fling himself from the bed into the corner of the room and contort his body into the smallest shape he could manage, screaming in Russian and pulling his hair out with tearing running steadily down his face. Needless to say, when he finally saw Bucky give into sleep, he pretended to sleep, all the while keeping a watchful eye on his companion. During the day to day nightmares, Steve could typically draw Bucky from his dream with a light hand on his shoulder and quiet words. Though when Bucky’s night terrors got extremely bad, Steve was little help. 

Steve liked to be able to be there for Bucky. The only real time Steve was reminded of his pal before the war was after rousing Bucky from a dream. Much like Steve, Bucky could not wake from sleep with his protective layers fully assembled. In the moments before realty crashed down on him, Bucky wasn’t the soldier. He was himself, Steve’s Bucky. And Steve cherished these moments, as selfish as they were.

Thankfully, Bucky had never caught Steve waking up from a night terror. He truly doesn't get them as often as he did. That's not to say he sleeps like a baby either. He sleeps extremely lightly after having lived in a warzone. However, the few times he has woken up from watching Peggy slowly fade away into nothingness or watching Bucky fall over and over, he hasn't tipped Bucky off. A few deep breaths and most nights Steve could wipe his eyes, roll over, and doze fitfully back to sleep. Steve could easily pass off the fitful sleeping if Bucky started to catch on on the fact that men like him and Bucky don't get to sleep peacefully. On the worse nights, he would get up, dress and start the day. It didn't seem abnormal for Bucky either because neither had established a routine so a screw up sleeping pattern didn't seem all that odd, especially considering Bucky's own sleeping schedule. 

Minutes passed and neither moved to get more comfortable. Bucky’s voice suddenly broke the somewhat tense silence. “I’m sorry for waking you so often. Seeing the darkness under your eyes because of me.. I hate it,” he whispered. 

Steve was taken aback. Maybe it was the cover of dark or the close proximity, but Steve could tell both of their layers of armor were coming down. “I don’t mind. You don’t wake me much. I’m typically already awake.”

Not commenting on Steve’s admission, Bucky continued on, “I don’t know how you do it. Compartmentalizing or suppressing or whatever enough to not wake up screaming or back in a hail of bullets. How do you do it?” 

“I.. After a while, I stopped screaming. My voice gets caught in my throat. I wake up in a cold sweat or crying,” Steve murmured.

Bucky’s body shifted as he turned to face Steve, “So you mean to tell me each time you’ve woken up and been on that plane or in that warzone during the time we've been together, you’ve done it alone?”

The hurt and edge of pain in Bucky’s voice caused grief and guilt to well up in Steve’s chest. “You just.. don’t get much sleep and already have so much on your mind,” Steve answered weakly.

“Sleep nor places in my memory are more important than being able to be there for you like you’ve been there for me,” Bucky said firmly. “I know.. we haven’t talked much.. at all.. But I have most of my memories and I catch glimpses of it on your face, Steve, and I hate so much to disappoint you.. But I’m not that person that you made love to and cried over sending him off to war.”

Tears stung Steve’s eyes, but he willed them not to fall. “I know you aren’t that person and you don’t have to be. I’m not that person either. So much has changed and I’ve had to change with it. I will never be a hundred and twenty-five pound asthmatic fording papers and sneaking into his best friends bunk.” 

A tear escaped Steve’s eyes, rolling hotly down his check and plopping wetly on the pillow his head rested on. He finally turned over from his position on his back to look at Bucky and say, “We aren’t the same people, Buck. I know that. But I’ll take whatever you’ll give me and that will never change.”

Hesitantly, Bucky’s hand reached up to gently wipe away the tear from Steve’s eye. Resting his palm on Steve’s cheek, thumb lightly caressing the soft skin there, Bucky placed a delicate kiss on Steve’s trembling lips. Slowly, Bucky snaked his arm around Steve’s back and torso, bringing him closer. Steve nuzzled his face into the warm hollow beneath Bucky’s chin, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s middle. 

Though it wasn't the reunion either had expected, it was a start. Easily, both fell into a deep sleep wrapped up in each other. 

**Author's Note:**

> I take requests on tumblr @bucarestbuck. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
